


eulogy & letter

by orphan_account



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1644215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>we sing songs about the dead and we reminisce on times past. it's only human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eulogy & letter

**Author's Note:**

> i've always wanted to write something akin to "the company man" by ellen goodman, so i tried.
> 
> another work dedicated to the bff, but most things i write are for fun and he reaps the rewards.

**eulogy**

When I hear the name 'Kyouji Kuzunoha', I think of a messy haired man with a perpetual scowl on his face towering over me at 6'3. Rei Reiho, his assistant, likes to call him a perfectionist. What makes her call him that is a complete mystery to me.

When I hear the name 'Kyouji Kuzunoha', I think of a man's desk covered in the graveyards of cigarettes— ashtrays— and built on hills of paperwork. I think of the park rangers in the nearby national park that know all seventy acres of their workplace like the backs of their hands. How he manages to get through that awful mess is a mystery to me. 

When I hear the name 'Kyouji Kuzunoha', I think of a man who is deeply loved by his assistant who can spout it out so many times with no reply from him at all. "He thinks a lot," Rei says, "He's all so logical and keeps it all in and it drives me nuts sometimes, really." Reiho's lips get a little flexible with some alcohol. "But that's why I love him."

Kyouji Kuzunoha is a man known to sleep with anybody, men and women alike. I'm not saying I personally have, but they say he's very good at his day job and his night job.

He is not a man to open his lips to alcohol, drugs, a dozen cigs, or much of anything. He reminds me of a calculator, thinking of what the answers are and never explaining how he got there. It's all in his head. It's either genius or lonely, really. Rei just thinks he's perfect.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand the relationship that they have. "Does it hurt to have your affection so unrequited?" There are no pauses for thought before Rei answers "Absolutely not."

Her eyes glitter and her heart tightens when she speaks of him. The love she has for him exudes its presence in the air and becomes as unmistakable and undeniable as much as fact. She loves him in the kind of love that people would die to have, would die to be. To her, it is a phenomenon as natural as breathing, and to them it is a phenomenon as natural as breathing in water. 

When I hear the name 'Kyouji Kuzunoha', I think of a man who seems to never die despite the ridiculous acts he makes his body go through. From breaking every bone in his body by fighting demons to seeing countless others die, close or not, it's unimaginable as to how he functions fine as is. Rei states that she occasionally finds an empty box of tissues on a cloud of its contents underneath next to an empty bottle of fancily packed vodka. 

I think of little boys exploring supermarkets by themselves.

When I hear the name 'Kyouji Kuzunoha', I think of a man who died last week who's in the thoughts of a woman who adores him as much as he did when he was alive. I think of a man no one really knew yet loved him as if they did. 

His presence just seems too all there to refer to him as being dead. He is and always will be larger than life. He hasn't died, he lives in all of us. 

(Written and delivered by Madame Ginko.)

**letter**

This is a jarring set of thoughts by Kyouji Kuzunoha that don't seem to match his character. Nonetheless, they are probably real as they're confirmed to be written in the deceased's handwriting. 

Dear Rei,

So, I guess I died.

Well, it was going to come eventually. I've had the thought of writing a letter for you in some case that wasn't me dying since words come slightly easier on paper than verbally. And then I wondered if getting a letter of this nature would even make you happy, because I'm not fond of making you upset even though that's what I seem to do often. 

I'll try to not make this the kind of letter to make you sad even when I'm rolling in my grave when I still have so much left to do.

Words are exhausting, but at the bare minimum I'll give you this just in case I die. 

The words are sitting in my throat, my fingers, really, my mind, truly. The context of this letter isn't what I'm preoccupied with, but telling you my thoughts that I haven't for the near two decades I've known you is.

I'm just not very good at this. Sorry. 

I really do love you. 

(A new piece of paper is added. Dated a few days after.)

Reading over this, I realize that this would be a shitty thing to give you if I died. Nonetheless, I told you you looked beautiful that night you went on your date a few weeks after said date and you still beamed up, incredibly happy over the statement. 

I don't really get it, but if the things I say no matter how imperfect they seem to be in my mind seem to please you I might as well say them. I know, first part is crumpled. I dug it out the recycling a few minutes ago. I'm glad you didn't throw it out yet. 

You came in late today. Your hair was messy and you seemed flustered. It doesn't take much of a genius to realize what happened but nonetheless I felt this weariness in my heart thinking about your new boyfriend. Would he even treat you well? Only time will tell.

I still love you. 

(A new piece of paper is added. Dated a few months after.)

Somehow, I'm still not satisfied. Just ending it like that doesn't seem right either. 

Lately, I've been thinking about you. Ever since I walked into your apartment while you were showering and you were in your towel nonchalantly getting me something to drink for my massive hangover. Your towel was pink. It suited your flushed skin and your pale lips. I think you were very beautiful, but you always are. 

(Striking entry in the letter dated a few years after.)

I'm thinking about how your skin tasted on my lips last night after we just ended up fucking each other on the office recliner. Luckily, it's my recliner, no one else sits on it but me. 

To think of clients sitting on a recliner detective and assistant fucked on is a fucked up thought within of itself. 

I'm thinking about how gently how your fingers seemed to know where to hold me and how your voice broke whenever I held you close to me. Your panties were blue, a little tear in the elastic. Your bra was ratty and old, your breasts are the smallest I've ever held, or sucked, for that matter Still cute. You were beautiful. 

It's adorable how you weren't ready. You had, what you called your ugliest underwear on, how you, clearly flustered, turned the blinds closed with an arm over your breasts as I sat there, waiting for you. 

I don't remember how it started. I locked the door and you kissed me, as you usually do, and somehow I ended up returning it. The papers are still scattered on the ground. My mess doesn't make sense anymore, but with a worthy price. 

I pulled you on the desk and undid your shirt, your breath heavy on my neck and kissing and biting hard, your hands on my belt slightly nudging my obvious erection and further turning me on. A strange situation where I wasn't silently dictating games with prostitutes with cash as a prize. 

I fucked you there, I fucked you just about everywhere, we waltzed around the room and the blinds shook when I held you against the window trying, honestly, really hard to get off on you because you kept, asking me too. 

That was really hot. 

And then you sat me down in that recliner and nibbled my boxers, your breath hot, heavy, and incredibly horny. And you sucked me off and rubbed me gently, your heels clicking against the wooden flooring until I just happened to come all in your mouth, over and over again, and you told me I felt good just like every other prostitute has ever touched me. 

You were very sexy. 

Some of these documents are stained. 

I'm honestly grateful.

I can't help but wonder if the sex we had was the best I've ever in my life. Though, I can't necessarily discard the feeling of guilt I have right now. I can't love you right and that's that. 

This won't happen again, I swear. It's a fond memory now though, in these letters. I'm sure you'll remember. 

(Numerous comments about Rei are added throughout the duration of the letter. Dated a few days before his death.)

I can't really call this much of a letter anymore, it's more of a stack of thoughts about you I felt just wouldn't help to tell you. Reading through them, the me of six years ago was a fool, but all young are foolish, and I still am. 

I contemplate on telling you how I feel, but there's no point. There's this air around you I can't possibly tear apart, and there's something about me that feels like I can't make you happy.

I love you. I'm sorry, I'm dead now. But I love you. 

(Dated the day of his death. Many entries between this and the last part are incredibly similar in nature.)

Rei, you look beautiful today. I love you. (Some thoughts are scribbled out.) I hope that you'll always be by my side, but I don't really need to hope that. You're a Reiho and I'm a Kuzunoha, it just comes to the fact that we'll always work together until one of us dies. Take care of yourself. Don't be sad about me. 

I've had my bad feelings but I can smell death around me today. 

Take care of the plants. I love you, and I'm truly sorry. 

You're as beautiful as the day I met you sixteen years ago.

(Dated many years after his death. Paper is relatively new in nature. No one knows how this sheet got mixed up with the letter. Thought to be a counterfeit, but analyzed and confirmed to be the deceased's handwriting.)

I'm looking for you now, and I'll always look from now on. I've waited long enough to treat you as you should and to tell you: I've been just as in love with you as you were in me. 

—Sukeroku

(The original first entry of this letter is dated seven years before Kyouji Kuzunoha's death.)


End file.
